Educated at Queen's University, Belfast, where he served as President of the Students' Union, he later became a practising solicitor. Attwood was a member of Belfast City Council for the Upper Falls, West Belfast from 1985 to 2001. He was a former leader of the SDLP Belfast City Council Group. In 1996 he was an unsuccessful candidate in the Northern Ireland Forum election in West Belfast.[1] In 1997, he participated in negotiations for the first Nationalist Mayor of Belfast, having failed to secure his own nomination for the post within his political grouping.